7/30/2015

The assault against our Second Amendment rights continue, much driven by emotion-based arguments not backed up facts, evidence, or a modicum of truth.

The best response to them from those of us who understand the issue of law-abiding citizens being able to defend themselves: “Screw You!”

It’s not exactly a traditional argument, but it’s certainly appropriate here. The fact is that there is no point in arguing with liberal gun-control advocates because their argument is never in good faith. They slander gun owners as murderers. They lie about their ultimate aim, which is to ban and confiscate all privately owned weapons. And they adopt a pose of reasonability, yet their position is not susceptible to change because of evidence, facts or law. None of those matter – they already have their conclusion. This has to do with power – their power.

You can’t argue with someone who is lying about his position or whose position is not based upon reason. You can talk all day about how crime has diminished where concealed carry is allowed, while it flourishes in Democrat blue cities where gun control is tightest. You can point to statistics showing that law-abiding citizens who carry legally are exponentially less likely to commit gun crimes than other people. You can cite examples of armed citizens protecting themselves and their communities with guns. You can offer government statistics showing how the typical American is at many times greater risk of death from an automobile crash, a fall, or poisoning than from murder by gun.

But none of that matters, because this debate is not about facts. It’s about power. The liberal anti-gun narrative is not aimed at creating the best public policy but at disarming citizens the liberal elite looks down upon – and for whom weapons represent their last-ditch ability to respond to liberal overreach.

Put simply, liberal elitists don’t like the fact that, at the end of the day, an armed citizenry can tell them, “No.”

And we can back that “no” up with our arms. If they persist, the next to the last sound they'll hear is a slide or bolt being pulled back to chamber a round, and they know it. All the more reason to make sure we exercise and defend our rights to defend ourselves, our loved ones, and our community. Goodness knows they won't.

7/26/2015

It's a cooler and wetter weekend here in the Lakes Region as compared to last weekend. Not as much yard work getting done as there would be, but there were plenty of other chores that needed doing that didn't involve mowing, raking, or weeding.

I'm not complaining by any means as it has allowed me to attend to things that were lower priority but that still needed to be done.

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On the other hand, this jackass is, like Seth Rogen, a reliable cheerleader for SJW attacks so long as they’re directed at other people; only when such attacks are directed at themselves do they suddenly feel that maybe this censorship-by-contrived-hypersensitivity is stultifying, anti-creativity, anti-thought and ultimately anti-human.

Another case of privileged SJW “Do as I say, not as I do.”

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It appears the decades of effort put forth by the first, second, and third wave feminists to get women to minimize their time with their families and children (if they even have any) in favor of their careers has come to naught.

They’re sometimes described as careerist and individualistic, but a certain group of them, at least—high-achieving women—actually prioritizes family over work to a greater extent than their mothers did.

If the surveys that show this trend are reasonably accurate it may indicate that many women aren't buying the hype and actually want families and all that goes with it, even at the expense of their careers. While this applies only to the high-achieving women who have that option, it doesn't surprise me that many women affected by “economic inequality” may not have that choice.

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...a University of Michigan survey showed that throughout 2015, consumers have been convinced that there was a serious jump coming for gas prices, dampening their enthusiasm to go out and spend the savings from the pump.

This fear of future higher prices, it seems, has simply kept consumers on the sideline, and prevented the economy from really taking off on the back of consumer spending as many had hoped.

Like us, many Americans using these savings to pay off existing debt or putting them aside to pay for necessities later in the year. A good portion of what we saved from lower gas prices is going to pay for our firewood purchases for the upcoming winter, propane purchases from this past winter, and much needed repairs and maintenance to our vehicles. (Some of that was already accomplished when we replaced the brakes on the trusty F150.)

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And herein lies the problem — in attempting to solve pressing and important social issues, millennial social justice advocates are violently sabotaging genuine opportunities for progress by infecting a liberal political narrative with, ironically, hate.

Many will understand this term I used — millennial social justice advocates — as a synonym to the pejorative “social justice warriors.” It’s a term driven to weakness through overuse, but it illustrates a key issue here: that, sword drawn and bloodthirsty, millennial social justice advocates have taken to verbal, emotional — and sometimes physical — violence.

I've noticed that, and it isn't subtle. The MSM has tried to paint it as something else, but the SJW's seem to have no problems with saying one thing and then following up with the very thing they say the are against. It certainly weakens any moral 'superiority' they thought they had because from that point on most people see them as instigators and thugs. From that point on most people stop listening to them which of course drives them on to commit even more anti-social acts in an effort to make people pay attention. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence and common sense can see how that will end.

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A big cause, obviously, is the high cost of housing. According to a March analysis by the California Legislative Analyst, “Today, an average California home costs $440,000, about two–and-a-half times the average national home price ($180,000).”

Another big factor is the ongoing exodus from the state of decent-paying jobs for workers with few skills, Bill Watkins told us; he’s the executive director of the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting at California Lutheran University.

Unfortunately, ongoing government actions will make poverty even worse. Minimum wage increases statewide and in such cities as Los Angeles and San Francisco will destroy the crucial first jobs for many of the young and low-skilled. Assembly Bill 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, continues to drive up manufacturing costs. Possible higher taxes, ironically, to deal with poverty, will kill more jobs.

The problems in California are, for the most part, self-inflicted. It also doesn't help that across the board solutions are used to address problems that are really regional in nature, something that hurts those not having those problems. (This is also a lesson for The-Powers-That-Be in Washington because most problems are regional, yet Washington applies nationwide solutions that hurt more than help.)

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It looks like Vermont has taken a page from the California energy handbook and mandated all kinds of renewable sources as their primary source of electricity. Too bad they didn't bother to look at the actual cost and downsides to doing so.

Some of the 'greener' supporters of renewable mandates are also advocating for the removal of electricity generating hydro dams.

Another clean source is the recently purchased Winooski Hydroelectric Dam, a small hydro project developed by environmental pioneer John Warshow, who died last month. The dam produces 7.4 megawatts.

Ironically, while some environmentalists have been developing small dams, others have been campaigning to tear down small dams around the state. The Newport 11 dam was recently removed from the Clyde River and other small dams are under fire. The strategy resembles one pursued for years by the Sierra Club, which favors small dams globally but campaigns to tear them down locally. Warshow developed three other small dams around the state.

It is yet another example of “Do as I say, not as I do” environmentalism.

The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant was shut down not because it had reached the end of its life, but because the 'greener' Greens demanded it despite the fact that it provided up to half of the electricity used in Vermont. What's ironic is that Green Mountain Power has signed contracts with New Hampshire's Seabrook nuclear plant for electricity to replace some of the capacity lost when Vermont Yankee shut down. To say the 'greener' Greens were upset would be an understatement.

In a further bit of irony, it appears Vermont's electricity demand is growing even as its supply is decreasing. No one has yet divulged how the increasing power deficit within the state will be addressed, even in the Vermont Public Service Department's Comprehensive Energy Plan. Their chart of the available sources of power versus the demand shows in increasing power deficit.

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This just in:

Chuck Norris has grizzly bear rug in his room. It's not dead, it's just afraid to move.

Some restaurants have tacked on a 15 percent surcharge to cover the higher wages. And some managers are no longer encouraging customers to tip, leading to a redistribution of income. Workers in the back of the kitchen, such as dishwashers and cooks, are getting paid more, but servers who rely on tips are seeing a pay cut.

So like many actions taken by the I-don't-care-if-it helps-anyone-but-it-makes-me-feel-better-about-myself Left, it ends up hurting more people than it helps, doesn't really help the people it's supposed to, all while causing harm to the businesses that supply jobs and costing consumers even more money they don't have.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the cooler weather will be leaving in time to go back to work, the yard work is never done, and where the kids go back to school in four weeks.

7/24/2015

As one service worker to another I have to say this: After all the screwed up orders, which is pretty much every time, *cough*Taco Bell is more reliable. *cough*

The service without a smile... I don't care if its fake, but don't make me feel like I'm the one inconveniencing you. Also, I can read backwards and I know you have greetings you are supposed to use, and well you don't. *Awkward face*

Don't even get me started on the food poisoning, uncooked food, or whatever... 'Cause Linda, Linda listen.

The bathrooms need to be visited by an old priest...and a young priest.

Last but not least, for the love of God, if I ask for an unsweetened ice tea, that means unsweetened. Nothing is worse than going in for that first bold sip of tea, but instead going into diabetic shock.

So, it doesn't pain me at all to say this, but I'm leaving you. You don't deserve $15/hr. There are people who are out there who work twice as hard as you for even less. They put their heart and soul into everything they do. They are not lazy.

As Wiz Khalifa once said multiple times, "Work Hard. Play Hard". We all have bills, loans, and family.

So here is a simple solution: Get another job, or leave and find a better job. There are some out there.

I know that my lack of business won't effect you that much, but I hope that if other people feel the same way that I do they will also go on and leave you too, cause it's bulls**t.

I pray to God that they are really putting in the machines, cause if my s**t's gonna get f****d up, I want to be the one doing it.

7/23/2015

I commented on traffic stupidity I came across back in May, witnessing relatively low level stupidity.

Over the past two days I've seen it elevated to a much higher level, again on my way to work.

Two mornings in a row the same fellow followed me off the bypass, tailgating me in an effort to “step it up” because I have to assume he was in a hurry. Once clear of the off-ramp and on to the state highway heading south, he pulled around me, accelerating rapidly and reach what I have to estimate well in excess of 65 miles per hour on stretch of the highway with a speed limit of 40.

Yesterday he got away with passing cars, in a dangerous and reckless manner, even pulling into oncoming traffic to gain a few car lengths. At a traffic light he pulled into the left turn lane and when the light changed to allow the turn he cut straight across rather than making the turn, cutting off the car just to the right of him.

Today he tried something like it again, trying to use the left turn lane to bypass the traffic in the two lanes to his left.

He almost made it.

When he cut across from the left turn lane he didn't leave quite enough room between him and the car in the extreme right lane and his right rear quarter sideswiped the left front of that car, causing him to almost lose control and causing body damage to both cars. At first I didn't think he was going to stop, seeing as he was in a such a big hurry. Then the driver of the car he sideswiped turned on his blue lights and went after him, to be joined a few seconds later by one of the local police cruisers that had been coming from the opposite direction.

The car this idiot sideswiped was an unmarked State Police cruiser.

About two miles up the road I came across the two cruisers, the local cop, the State trooper, and the traffic miscreant. He was face down over the hood of the local cruiser with his hands cuffed behind him. The State Police cruiser had quite a bit of wrinkled sheet metal from the bumper back to the wheel well, but it appeared to be drivable.

7/19/2015

It's a twofer weekend here in New Hampshire, with the 5 Hour Energy 301 NASCAR Sprint Cup race in Loudon at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and the 'Luke Bryant' weekend (3 concerts) at our local concert venue. I figure we'll be seeing quite a few folks from the Speedway making the trip up to Lake Winnipesaukee for the concert tonight, at least those who didn't make the trip last night.

The local airport is chockablock full of business jets, with the itinerant parking ramp just about full with Lears, Bombardiers, Citations, and Gulfstreams. Some belong to the race teams, some to corporate sponsors, and some to some of the wealthier race fans. We've hearing them coming into the airport all weekend. I expect the usual exodus will take place starting about an hour after the checker flag falls at Loudon. It's going to be quite noisy here when they leave.

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The trusty F150 received long overdue maintenance, in this case replacement of brake rotors and pads. I had one, possibly two warped rotors that made braking an interesting time. For the most part I would down-shift and let the engine do some of the braking before applying the brakes. Over the past two weeks it got bad enough I realized I could no longer put off the work and took it to my local mechanic.

Now that the brakes are fixed, I have to admit I'm really not used to them not surging and making some of the subtle noises associated with a warped rotor. It's a little disconcerting.

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Illegal immigration has reached a crisis point. No, not here in the US, but in Germany.

It passed the crisis point here in the US years ago, particularly at the urging of the Teleprompter In Chief. At least Germany's Chancellor Andrea Merkel is willing to address the issue, even if it's hard.

Considering Sanchez used a gun lost by a federal agent to kill Steinle, not one bought at the only gun store still existing in San Francisco, this proposed new law addresses absolutely nothing and even if it had been in place prior to Steinle's death would not have prevented it.

I'm beginning to think we should enact a quarantine of San Francisco in an effort to contain the insanity that has infected that once great city.

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That's strange considering Rand consider racism to be “the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage—the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.”

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I'm cutting this a bit short as we have received severe thunderstorm warnings and one cell is less than 30 minutes out, so I'm shutting everything down as a precaution.

So, that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the NASCAR fans are leaving, the barbecue grills are being covered, and where yet another round of thunderstorms is on their way.

7/18/2015

You know common sense is rapidly disappearing when a supposedly knowledgeable TV person is so intimidated by a fire extinguisher, one used to put out a kitchen fire, that they should be removed from the gene pool immediately. Eloi and Morlocks indeed!

As Tam puts it, it's “still more proof that speciation is under way.”

When the big catastrophe hits in whatever shape, it's likely the techies, tradesmen, and nerds will survive and the useless “phone sanitizers and TV news anchors” will perish.

Believe it or not, I see this kind of helplessness every day and it's only getting worse. Too many people have no idea how any of the technology that sustains them works, nor do they care...until it doesn't work anymore. Then they're lost and have no idea how to survive without it. After all electricity comes from the wall socket and water from the faucet, but they have no idea from where the supply of electricity or water actually comes, nor the gas for their SUVs or the natural gas/propane/oil used to heat their homes. The thing is, they should. Certainly previous generations (including mine) had a pretty good understanding how things worked (and still do). Not so much today.

7/16/2015

I was at a meeting at our local airport this afternoon when I found out The Donald would be arriving here in central New Hampshire some time early this evening.

From what this “person in the know” stated, everything was planned and timed from when the aircraft (a Cessna Citation X) would roll up onto the ramp in front of the terminal, The Donald's exit from the jet and entry into the terminal, a brief 'meet and greet' with a few of the local power players, then a departure from the terminal in a large black SUV for a 10 minute ride and 20 minute speech and Q&A session in nearby Weirs Beach, then a return to the airport followed by a rapid boarding of the jet and an equally rapid departure and trip back to New York. It must be nice to have that kind of money.

At least The Donald hasn't been harping about other people's carbon foot print.

7/12/2015

This was the first weekend in two months where I haven't had internal doohickeys inside me which made it difficult to do anything. While I am not yet 100%, I am pretty darned close. It certainly allowed me to start doing the yard work again. (I have to give a big “Thank You!” to friends who came to do that work while I was laid up.)

I made up for my previous inability to get things done by going to town on the errands yesterday – a dump run, dropping off recyclables at the transfer station as well as hauling a load of cut brush to the same location. I even managed to mow a portion of the lawn yesterday and will finish that later today.

I can once again be a participant rather than just a spectator.

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It was while I was out during one of my many errands yesterday that I struck up a conversation with an acquaintance about the whole Anthropogenic Climate Change thing, she being a lukewarm supporter of the concept while I certainly am not. While we didn't get into the nuts and bolts of the debate, I did talk to her about how the whole thing has been blown out of proportion by people who have no background or understanding about science and how it is supposed to work. They take the word of 'experts' who are no more versed in science than they, using it as a justification for their position. Even she admitted that the whole AGW “Do Something!” crowd seem to be motivated more by emotion rather than facts.

I quoted Glenn Reynolds to her, stating “I'll start believing it's a crisis when the people telling me it's a crisis start acting like it's a crisis.”

Her response: “Good point.”

There's hope yet.

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What do you expect when so many of them are forecasting nothing but doom even in the face of more disclosures that their conclusions are based upon 'cooked' data and heavily influenced by politics by way of government grants to 'prove' we're all gonna die?

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Outrageous court rulings and legislation that force people into performing deeds or actions that are in direct conflict with their fundamental beliefs, be they be about their natural rights or their religious faith, are driving the people to say “Enough! You've gone too far and we're not going to obey! You can't force us to go against our beliefs and we won't! Now bugger off!”

The touchie-feelie crap has gone too far and in an effort not to 'offend' a tiny minority, the courts and the legislatures have offended the majority, in some cases crossing constitutional lines and the people won't stand for it any more.

I expect the frequency of civil disobedience to increase as the Progressive-driven mandates further twist the constitution and our laws into unrecognizable shapes.

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As I wrote in the comments, “The name “Washington Redskins” is quite offensive and we should drop the name “Washington” from the team name, considering what Washington has done to our Native American brothers and sisters over the years….”

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No the poor dead stupid dear's mommy wants to require training in the proper use of fireworks. However she has overlooked that no amount of training can instill common sense. (I have also found that common sense isn't all that common these days...if it ever was.)

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This time they went after actor Tom Selleck for 'stealing' water from a neighboring town through the use of a tanker truck . It turns out the water was actually purchased and the tanker truck was owned by the company authorized to pull water from that town's water system. That the company sold the water to Selleck is something the MSM failed to discover which shows you just how lazy they've become.

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The We're-All-Gonna-Die Warmistas beclown themselves whenever they say “The science is settled.” It proves to the rest of us that they haven't a clue and should be ridiculed and scorned for their willful ignorance.

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First, the Progressives want to tell us how we must live. Now they want to tell us where we can live.

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Per capita driving has peaked in America, and with that new normal comes the question of whether or not we should be spending limited transportation funding on building new roads. If nothing else the driving trends support the wisdom of a “fix-it-first” policy that focuses on highway maintenance over expansion.

That certainly may be true in some areas like Iowa, and maybe here in New Hampshire. We don't really need new roads so much as we need to maintain the ones we have and maybe widen one or two of the major highways in the southern tier. Of course more highway funds would be available to maintain the existing roads if so much wasn't being wasted on mass transit and commuter rail projects that never pay for themselves or being diverted to other uses rather than actually paying for the upkeep of our highway infrastructure. There are thousands of bridges needing major maintenance or replacement as they've exceeded their design lifetimes.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the summer weather has been gorgeous, the summerfolk are tying up the local roads and ice cream stands, and yet again Monday has returned all too soon.

7/09/2015

Liberals talk about politics in language that appeals to our primal socialist instincts, developed on the savanna when we belonged to small clans of hunter-gatherers who really did look out for their kin. Conservatives discuss politics in language that reflects modern reality: socialism doesn’t work in groups larger than a clan, because people do not behave selflessly when they belong to a large group of unrelated strangers.

When you belong to a large group of people, it all becomes impersonal, all theoretical. The results of actions taken “for the good of all” become distant because it affects people not known by those making the decision, and therefore, they aren't 'real' people, just abstractions. That is why socialism has always failed once it scales up. (It also failed on the small scale when the Pilgrims tried it at the Plymouth Colony. If it wasn't for the Wampanoag, they all would have starved to death. This was the first example of the Thatcher maxim, where the colonists only survived because of “other people's money,” figuratively speaking.)

Liberals manifest their yearning for social connectedness by using words like care, help, kind, neighbor and volunteer more often than conservatives do. Conservatives more frequently use power words like boss, coerce, hero, strong and victory.

Ah, those good-hearted liberals, uninterested in status and money. (The Obamas and their fellow liberals vacation on Martha’s Vineyard only because the beaches are so pretty.) And those deadly power-crazed conservatives, reluctant to even utter nice words like volunteer. (Never mind the studies showing that conservatives actually do more volunteer work than liberals do.)

It all comes down to the old aphorism: Actions speak louder than words. The liberals use lots of words to try to get other people to do something, and usually not the correct something. The conservatives actually do something and are not required to be coerced into it, even by liberals.

7/05/2015

The sound of fireworks faded away some time after midnight. We could hear them all across the lake. BeezleBub had gone to one of the high points in our town overlooking Winnipesaukee and watched the fireworks taking place in towns all around the lake.

Unfortunately I was housebound and the only fireworks I watched were on TV, in this case those down in Boston. We did indulge hot dogs and hamburgers.

Overall it was a pretty good Fourth of July.

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One thing we did was watch the Sons of Liberty marathon on the History Channel . While I understand the history of the events leading up to the Revolution taught in school was sanitized a bit, some of what I saw on the show fell prey to political correctness, with too many 21st century ‘sensibilities’ incorporated into the story.

Still, it was a decent program. It did show that if the British had sent someone more sensible and less brutal than General Gage to Boston to calm the city and bring it under control, the Revolution might have never occurred.

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It seems the PC forces have no problems making stuff up in order to destroy the reputation of Professor Tim Hunt. It turns out that all of the claims made by the BBC about his misogyny towards women in science were a bald-faced lie.

Not that the BBC cares.

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Deb keeps telling me I have to stop watching all of the home improvement shows on HGTV, DIY and a few other channels because I get an inaccurate view of how long (and how much money) it will take to do all the things I’d like to do here at The Manse. As she reminds me most of those shows have large crews that can get things done in a day or two what would take us all summer to get done.

That doesn’t stop me trying to make plans for much needed improvements.

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Speaking of Deb, she had an unexpected visitor arrive at her place of employment this past Friday.

As Deb told me, he was willing to visit the New Hampshire Veterans Home while our own governor hasn’t.

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So reason and, by extension, logic should be ignored merely because of white privilege? The professor who put this forth of crap should be fired because it is quite obvious he has lost touch with reality and needs help.

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Now it appears that the insurance premiums for 2016 will higher…again. The only direction rates have been heading under ObamaCare has been up, and this time around rate increases are expected to go up between 20% and 54%.

Notice how not one thing that was promised that ObamaCare was supposed to provide has been kept? While health insurance is a little more available, the costs for most have skyrocketed. And while more people can get health insurance that does not automatically translate into access to health care, something Pelosi, Reid, and Obama never told anyone.

7/03/2015

In case you have been wondering about my dearth of posting, I have a simple explanation.

Since Mother’s Day weekend I have been dealing with an ongoing health issue that has had me hospitalized more than once, and therefore unable to post on any kind of regular basis. (Some of the meds I’ve been taking also made it difficult and unwise to do so.) I will be dealing with this for at least a couple of more weeks. Once past that I will be posting again on a regular basis.